Retention Success Stories

Business

Acting as liaisons with other County departments, Arlington's Business Investment Group (BIG) staff can help your organization open doors to new business opportunities. For example, here are just a few examples of how they have helped some of their existing clients:

Expansion Facilitation and Benefits (for Eligible Companies)

In February 2012, Dynamis celebrated its four year anniversary. Significant growth prompted the company to acquire additional office space. Instead of subleasing, Dynamis decided to sign a direct lease. BIG staff visited the company and provided detailed information about State-provided benefits for job growth. The company's executives also attended AED's Executive Speaker Series.
Ivysys Technologies was happy doing business in Arlington but by 2009 needed to expand in order to accommodate the hiring of new workers. Our team led Ivysys representatives of a tour of available space in the County, provided various site reports, and ultimately facilitated their relocation/expansion from Crystal City to Ballston in order to be closer to key government clients.
Capterra, an information technology company that was already enjoying doing business in Arlington, decided to expand its presence in Ballston. Capterra felt strongly that its Arlington location enhanced its ability to hire and its access to engineers, IT specialists, and professionals from the area’s “creative class.” Our team worked with Capterra to identify available space options, provided child care information for its employees, further developed our ongoing relationship with the company’s CEO and successfully helped them move buildings within Ballston and expand their presence in Arlington.
DRT Strategies is a minority and woman-owned business which has won numerous awards in recent years. As a successful government contractor, DRT Strategies decided to expand its office to accommodate the company’s growth. Our team identified available commercial space for DRT Strategies, assisted the company in receiving Commonwealth benefits for expanding companies, and celebrated their expansion—which nearly doubled their space—in Ballston.
Since the beginning of our team’s relationship with AECOM—a global provider of professional technical and management support services—the company reiterated its primary reason for locating to Arlington: its ability to hire the specific type of highly skilled workers it needs to run a successful business. Our team connected AECOM to the New Jobs Invectives Program, which ultimately assisted them in hiring new employees at their Arlington office.

On-site Retention Visit

In 2010 our team outreached to Anser and visited their offices in Shirlington as part of the Retention Program. From our on-site visit, our team learned Anser was concerned about the merger of two of its business lines and the possible relocation of its federal clients due to the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure actions. As a result of their involvement in Retention Program, our team successfully addressed their concerns and continues to have an ongoing relationship to support Anser’s business success in Arlington. Anser’s executives have attended several of our networking events, reached out for technical support on specific projects, and received lease renewal assistance.
After one of our team’s Business Development Managers reached out to, visited, and learned more about Bioinformatics, we continuously looked for opportunities to promote the company. Through our involvement in numerous associations and organizations, such as the Northern Virginia Life Sciences Community (NVLSC), we’re promoted the mission and work of Bioinformatics and ultimately helped increase their visibility though partnerships and cross-marketing efforts. As a result of our relationship with Bioinformatics, they’re now fully involved in NVLSC events and continue to make new contacts to this day.
Our team visited Alcosys to meet its executives, learn more about its mission, and better understand their needs doing business in Arlington. As a result of the visit, we realized Alcosys was looking for business partners on specific projects. Our team worked with Alcosys’ executives to facilitate B2B connections, introduce them to other Arlington-based companies in complimentary industries, and provided requests for proposals as well as other specific business opportunities related to their call center support services. Now that we know Alcosys and intimately understand their line of business, we continually look for opportunities to help them grow, spotlight their successes, and nominate them for various awards.
Our team’s longstanding relationship with Lockheed Martin played an integral role in helping retaining the renowned advanced technology giant in Arlington. When they approached us to assist with their decision between a potential expansion to their Maryland headquarters or tripling the size of their marketing center in Crystal City, we engaged them in a straightforward dialogue about the benefits of expansion in Arlington. The County’s superior visibility and transportation networks played a significant role in Lockheed’s decision to expand the size of its marketing center in Crystal City, where they’d host over 20,000 visitors per year. Our team set up a meeting between Lockheed and a County Board member, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony, invited its executives to numerous events (such as the Federal Reserve Bank panel discussion in Richmond), and helped host the Intelligent Communities Award.
When Millennium Corporation was deciding whether or not to leave Crystal City, one of our team’s Business Development Managers visited their office to find out about the company’s needs and reasons for considering a move. Our team presented Millennium with information about Crystal City’s redevelopment plan, address each of their concerns about staying in Arlington, connected them with the Virginia Jobs Growth benefit, and assisted them throughout the entire process of doubling their presence within the same building. Our team was present in June 201 as Millennium celebrated their open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony in their new facility.

Liaison Services with Other County Departments and Services

After Deloitte decided in 2009 to significantly expand its space in Rosslyn, they wanted an exterior building sign large enough to make known their presence in Arlington. Our team guided Deloitte through the various steps of Arlington’s regulated sign amendment process. We set up meetings with the appropriate officials and community representative, advised them on strategies for success, accompanied them to meetings, supported them in front of the County Board, and ultimately helped Deloitte secure permission for the sign.
After doubling their presence in Courthouse, MedStar brought in a large number of employees from outside of Arlington whose commuting patterns would have to change dramatically. Our team, in conjunction with Arlington Transportation Partners, provided personalized commuter plans for individual employees and held group orientation sessions to present information about the best commuting options from different parts of the region. MedStar employees are enjoying their new facility, reduced commuting times, and numerous, low-cost public transportation options.
During their combined expansion/relocation to Arlington, George Washington University required a site plan amendment for a necessary change of use within their new space. Our team personally walked them through the multi-faceted public process associated with the change of use and ultimately saved them a lot of time, money, and planning in the process.
Our team’s liaison services also help Arlington-based companies become an integrated part of the community. As a direct result of a retention visit to John Snow, we learned about the company’s strong culture of community involvement and subsequently connected them to various volunteer opportunities in both Arlington and the Greater Washington Metropolitan region.

Executive Networking Opportunities

National Capitol Contracting (NCC), an Arlington-based firm, marked its tenth year in business in May 2012. In the past ten years, it has grown from a one-client, one-service company headquartered in the basement of CEO Chris Marquez’s Arlington home to an SBA-certified 8(a) small disadvantaged business with dozens of customers and over 50 employees. Due to NCC’s recent success in both the public and private sectors, NCC will be doubling the size of its Arlington HQ offices from 4,300 square feet to about 7,500 square feet. NCC’s CEO noted that “the direct support of Arlington Economic Development (AED) played no small part in our decision to remain in Arlington, as well. AED’s Senior Manager of Business Development, Sindy Yeh, has actively introduced NCC to a number of potential local clients and AED continues to support the Arlington business community by hosting networking and thought leadership events with important decision makers.”
Over the past two years, BIG has involved ArcAspicio—a woman-owned business—in a variety of networking opportunities such as award recognition at the Virginia Fantastic 50 event (two years in a row), invitation to our Executive Luncheon, and introductions to potential business partners and relationships.
As a result of reaching out to Catapult, inviting them to our Executive Luncheon series, and networking with them at the annual Fantastic 50 event, our team set up a specific meeting with the company’s executives to discuss potential partnership opportunities with other companies and has since helped create new opportunities for Catapult.
Through one of our recent executive networking opportunities, the CEO of Decision Lens met representatives from the National Science Foundation and other companies with which to pursue potential business opportunities.

Public Brand Building and Exposure

The substantial growth of Arlington-based PRO-telligent from a company of three in 2000 to its current fielding of 400 staff members is a true testament to the company’s success. As PRO-telligent grew and became increasingly recognized for its accomplishments, our staff worked to promote the company. With AED’s support, PRO-telligent was nominated for and won the Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s Fantastic 50 Award and the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s Tech-E award for Corporate Executive of the Year. CEO Judy Sebastian also won the Women in Technology Award.
In May 2011, our team accompanied Virginia Governor McDonnell on a trip to New York to promote the benefits of doing business in Virginia to New York executives. Our team assisted the mission by leveraging our relationships with the business community to invite executives from three Arlington-based companies (EADS North America, The Nature Conservancy, Interstate Hotels and Resorts) to accompany the Governor on the trip. The three Arlington executives invited by our team—in addition to executives from Richmond and the Hampton Roads area—participated in the trip, networked with over ninety New York-based executives, shared their experiences doing business in the Commonwealth, and had exclusive one-on-one time with the Governor.

Valuable Industry and Marketing Research Tools

After moving to Arlington, our BIG team visited Excela Consulting and provided business and development updates to help ease their transition to the Courthouse area and familiarize them with nearby companies, amenities, and future developments.
As Arlington County worked to proactively mitigate the impacts of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC), our team reached out to hundreds of Defense contractors in the County to assess BRAC’s impact on area businesses. Our outreach to Paradigm Technologies resulted in an ongoing relationship through which our team provided up-to-date information about the BRAC moves and timeline. This information was essential to Paradigm Technologies as they made critical decisions about operations, satellite offices, future contract opportunities, and workforce needs.

Community Development Updates

After a retention visit to Millennium Corporation, our team learned that the company was deciding whether or not to stay in Crystal City. Our team informed them about the comprehensive 40 year Crystal City redevelopment plan and the exciting changes coming to the area, which complemented their decision making process. Millennium ultimately decided to remain in Crystal City.
After her first five years running an award-winning, up-scale restaurant in Ballston, the owner of an independently-run restaurant was facing lease renewal for her space. Our team provided up-to-date development updates for Ballston and Virginia Square, lists of existing and future commercial tenants, and general information about the latest happenings in the area. With the information in hand, the restaurant owner felt more confident about the next five years of her business’ future and ultimately renewed her lease.

Employee and Business Relocation Information

Mitsubishi Nuclear Engineering Systems has been operating from their Arlington location since 2009. Nearly one-third of the employees at this location is from Japan and is staffed in Arlington for three year rotations. To help orient these employees and make their rotations in Arlington as enjoyable as possible, our team created customized welcome packages including a list of nearby Asian grocery stores, contact information for Japanese doctors and dentists, and an overview of Arlington cultural activities and amenities.
When The George Washington University decided to expand their presence in Arlington, they reached out to our team for support. We led GW representatives on a tour of the County, identified several location options, put them in direct touch with property owners, provided community demographics, and mass transit information. Once GW decided to locate in Ballston, we provided a customized science, technology, and university clustering map to help familiarize them with existing organizations in the area. We also worked closely with GW and the property owner to ensure the building alterations met the university’s security and access needs.

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